What motivates kids (or people for that matter), autonomy and mastery? Or “performance orientation?”

We know that setting and working towards goals helps people learn and achieve. So how do we engender this in kids.

Turns out that schools can take lessons from some well-developed summer camps.

…were they interested in learning for learningâ€™s sake, or in showing off their smarts? The first type of attitude, called a â€œmastery orientation,â€ has been linked to high levels of motivation and engagement, while the second, known as a â€œperformance orientation,â€ has been tied to greater anxiety and less resilience in the face of failure.

During the summer enrichment program, the students became more apt to favor a mastery approach, endorsing statements such as â€œItâ€™s important to me that I learn a lot of new concepts in science,â€ and discounting statements like, â€œOne of my goals is to show others that Iâ€™m good at science,â€ which indicate a performance orientation.

Reward intellectual risk-taking, and avoid punishing students for failed experiments.

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